Speaking alongside Steven Chu at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy’s annual summit outside of Washington, D.C., Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, confidently declared that his company, which received a $465 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy, is a success story, and said the company would repay the loan in half the time it is required to. The loan is due by the end of the decade.

Tesla received a loan under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program. The loan enabled Tesla to retool an old automotive plant in California to produce the electric Model S. In last week’s quarterly earnings call, Tesla reported that it hit production-rate targets for the vehicle and saw a big increase in revenue, despite losing nearly $90 million for the quarter and $400 million in 2012.